Y2K Myth: The Millennium bug infests almost every line of computer code and database worldwide.

Y2K Fact: Many major financial databases and programs have been compliant for years. Most are now Y2K compliant.

The great majority of financial systems such as those processing mortgage payments and bond yields and a host of other financial applications have been handling next century dates successfully for years. Why? Because they were required to, that's why. Dates from the next century were being input and noncompliant systems were upgraded to handle these next-century dates as they were input.

Only a minority of financial systems are still processing dates that occur only on this side of the millennium, and most of the noncompliant of these have been upgraded to compliance and are now ready to receive and process next-century dates.

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Y2K Myth: Finding the Y2K bug is difficult and time consuming. Fixing the problem is next to impossible.

Y2K Fact: Locating noncompliant data and computer code is easy. Fixing the problem is not difficult.

Finding and fixing the millennium bug in the remaining noncompliant systems is not exactly rocket scientist stuff. The truth is that in financial systems, these dates and date handling routines are stored in easily accessible data bases and code which are in fact frequently accessed and modified as a matter of work-a-day routine. In real-world data processing centers this sort of work is usually assigned to rookies because it is so easy.

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Y2K Myth: The Y2K event will strike all at once on midnight December 31, 1999.

Y2K Fact: The Y2K event is spread. The Y2K event has been occurring for years and is occurring right now, and with minimal impact.

Another misleading concept the Y2Kers have been hawking from their cyber pushcarts is that the Y2K crisis will suddenly appear all at once out of nowhere at the stroke of midnight on Dec. 31, 1999, sort of like every computer turning into a cyber pumpkin like Cinderealla's coach. This is simply not the case.

In fact, we have been undergoing the Y2K crisis for years now.
Remember that the Y2K bug strikes (in noncompliant systems) when dates from both sides of the millennium are encountered. Noncompliant systems have been crashing for years as they encountered next-century dates. Of course they were fixed at once and with little disruption as the problem is not difficult to either find or fix once encountered.

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Y2K Myth: All embedded chips are infected with the Y2K bug.

Y2K Fact: Many embedded chips simply do not deal with time oriented processes, and thus have absolutely nothing to do with the Y2K event and will continue working just fine.

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Y2K Myth: All embedded chips that deal with time oriented processes will fail.

Y2K Fact: Many embedded chips that deal with time oriented processes do not handle dates, but rather concern themselves only with an internal "clock." The clock is initially set to zero and increments as the assigned work is processed, and resets to zero again at the end of the process. These chips do do not concern themselves with dates at all and will work just fine before, during and after the meter roll.

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Y2K Myth: All noncompliant embedded chips that do handle dates will fail on the millennium and never work again.

Y2K Fact: Almost all noncompliant embedded chips that do handle dates will work just fine after previous century dates are flushed out of whatever process they are regulating and work just fine once again until the next millennium, 2100.

All you will have to do is switch off systems with noncompliant chips and turn them back on after all previous century dates are no longer being fed into the system. They will then auto-reset. The key to understanding auto-reset is understanding that noncompliant chips are working just fine right now even as you read this essay. They are working because they are handling only dates from one century. They will also work just fine in the next century after this-century dates are flushed out.

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Y2K Myth: The sudden failure of the uncountable noncompliant systems on midnight of the meter roll will result in a snowballing effect from which it will take years to recover, a sort of cyber Armageddon.

Y2K Fact: First, fewer systems will fail than the snake oil peddlers would have you believe. (Gotta sell those tapes and books!) Second, many will auto reset as described above. Third, almost all computer dependent systems have built-in manual overrides which will allow these systems to keep running when the system fails for any reason. There will be no snowballing effect sending us back to the Neolithic on a one way ticket.

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Y2K Myth: The meter roll will result in massive social disturbances such as riots, possibly even war.

Y2K Fact: People simply do not engage in serious riots unless starving or extremely angry at other humans. The vast majority of people have more sense than the Y2K doomsters, so they will not riot. What you will see is a lot of parties getting out of hand and cars overturned and some stores looted.

The Y2K disturbances will be similar to the riots you see after victorious sports teams return to their hometowns for parades, and will naturally play themselves out as the liquor supply of the participants is consumed. Besides, all policeman, police reservists, national guardsmen, and federal military personnel will be standing by to bust heads and keep a lid on things.

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Y2K Myth: There will be bank runs resulting in a collapse of the economy.

Y2K Fact: Government officials have more sense than the Y2K doomsters (as do most creatures sufficiently evolved to be no longer shrieking and swinging branch-to-branch) so they will most likely introduce regulations to prevent this particular madness. Besides, all withdrawn money will be quickly deposited in the week after the meter roll when the Y2K-spooked depositors see for themselves that the world has neither stopped rotating on its axis nor revolving around the sun. (A few Y2Kers may die of disappointment, but that's their affair.)

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Y2K Myth: Food stores will be stripped bare, resulting in food shortages to the point of starvation.

Y2K Fact: The real Y2K food problem will be faced by the dummies who were stampeded by the doomsters. They will have figure out what to do with the Himalaya of hash they squirreled away.

The Y2K chattering teeth never tire of clacking away about how there is only a week's worth (or 3 days or whatever) of food in the food distribution chain. They fail to mention the fact that this "chain" is constantly being renewed at the supply end, which will not be shut down as they imagine.

Besides, most of the hoard and hide Chicken Littles will have assembled their mile high pile Doomsday dinners long before December, so there will be only minimal last minute food runs. And on top of all that the supermarkets will actually be overflowing with food in January of 2000 simply because many people will be eating their way through 20 years of powdered yams, and will thus not be buying food at the stores, resulting in an oversupply of food, not a shortage.

I trust this has deflated some of the Y2K gasbags. These industrious critters have amassed such a mountain of myths that one is all but overwhelmed. I'll be back later to let some more air out.

Okay - so let's assume that the "Y2K nuts" are pushing this "preparedness stuff" for the money - darn, wish I were getting some of that money for the kerosene heater and soup - maybe its a conspiracy by Home Depot, Lowes, and Campbell Soup.

So what is the agenda of this guy? Why is he so religiously fervent in his efforts to cut down, slight, insult, and deingrate somebody who is preparing a disaster they cannot prevent, but hope does not occur? My ancestors are form Germany and Scotland, so I'm sure when they got down out of the trees, but ... why is he denying so enthusiastically (and with no facts to back up his assessment, no what-if's, no aknowledgement of any sort that he might be wrong) that problems may occur.

His arguements are incomplete in the early secition - each correctly argues against a particular exaggerated statement that those who understand embedded chips have never accepted in the first place. In other words, he's arguing against false and exaggerated statements, but coming to a dangerously false conclusion: that the rest of the Y2K concers are also wrong. Then he really takes off on a flight of invective and hyperbole - and vigorously attackes those who prepare with no facts at all to justify his predictions.

Isn't he betraying the fact that if is one's head is buried in the sand, his arse is sticking up in the air making a fine target?